Eclipse

Part 1

Sasuke gasps and stumbles as a sharp, heavy sensation shoots towards his chest. He winces, letting out a pained moan. His eyes are squeezed shut, but when he opens them he isn't where he was mere moments earlier.

"What?" he whispers aloud, staring up at the front gates to Konoha before staring down at the child in his arm. "Sarada...? But I was just..." he pauses, eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

He jumped. Right?

He was supposed to die, but he didn't. Instead, something else happened.  Something Sasuke can't quite explain. He moved backwards - twenty years into the past. He's no longer thirty-nine. He's nineteen.

It's bright. He stares up and squints. He remembers this day, but vaguely. It was the day he returned home to Konoha. He left to become a better person, but he returned much worse. As the painful feeling in his chest begins to wane, Sasuke forces himself to take a step forward.

He wonders if this is some sort of heaven, or perhaps it is purgatory.

Then again, maybe it's hell. Maybe his hell is to live through all of his mistakes yet again. Nonetheless, he'll try to right at least a few wrongs. If the universe will let him, that is.

Sasuke walks through the gates, trying to portray an air of confidence the way he did the first time. He went straight to the Hokage and received a pardon for his absence.

This time, he doesn't go to the Hokage. Instead, he goes to the old Uchiha compound. If the Hokage needs to find him, he'll know where to look. Sasuke walks leisurely, refusing to look like he has something to hide. He feels people staring at him, at the child in his arm. He ignores them all.

Back home, everything is the same as it was since he left.

Sasuke sits outside on the wooden stairs holding Sarada. He's running out of supplies. He'll need to buy her some milk. He rocks her back and forth as she coos, half asleep and half awake. Sasuke stares down at her, mesmerized until he hears a twig snap. His neck snaps up, but instead of a threat he sees Naruto.

He catches a look of surprise make its way across Naruto's face when he spots the baby, but he masks it quickly with a welcoming smile. There Naruto is blond hair, blue eyes and a matured face once again wearing a smile so bright it could blind you. Sasuke takes comfort in seeing it. It's something he hasn't witnessed in a long, long time. "Sas-KEHHH!" he shouts accusingly at the top of his lungs.

Sasuke winces at the familiar sound of Naruto's scratchy, hoarse voice. "Hokage," Sasuke returns the greeting solemnly before staring back down at Sarada.

"That's twice you've run away," Naruto accuses.

"Well, I'm back and this time I'm staying."

When Sasuke first heard he would become a father, he hoped for a boy a boy to carry on the Uchiha bloodline and the sharingan. But he got a girl. Now he understands that it's for the best. A cursed clan such as his doesn't need to live on.

"The villagers are talking." Naruto says in a calmer tone. "They said they saw you. I hardly believed them. I had to see for myself."

"Well, here I am," Sasuke responds.

"With a child," Naruto murmurs. "Whose child is that?"

"Mine," Sasuke says, gaging Naruto's reaction.

Naruto's face remains perfectly blank. "How?"

"I had sex with a girl," Sasuke explains flatly. "She got pregnant."

Naruto gets flustered. "That's not what I meant!" he snaps.

Sasuke smiles at Naruto's pink cheeks. "Don't worry about it, Hokage. It doesn't concern you." He stands up and turns around. "Invite me in." Naruto demands before Sasuke can leave him standing alone.